Good Neighbors Campaign

Since 1994, USC faculty and staff have been helping the communities around the university to thrive through the Good Neighbors Campaign. In all, they have donated more than $16-million to the fundraising effort, which takes place each October at both the University Park and Health Sciences campuses. Contributions are distributed to USC Neighborhood Outreach (UNO) grants and United Way. Nearly 550 grants totaling $17.5-million have been given to community organizations to enhance educational opportunities, promote good health and fitness, support economic development and USC hiring, and improve safety.

Featured programs

Anthony Romano, left ,and Dylan Manzano, sixth graders at Foshay Learning Center, demonstrate robots to Alice Montoya, 5, in the Civic Engagement Tent at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC April 18, 2015. Photo by David Sprague
Anthony Romano, left ,and Dylan Manzano, sixth graders at Foshay Learning Center, demonstrate robots to Alice Montoya, 5, in the Civic Engagement Tent at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC April 18, 2015. Photo by David Sprague

Good Neighbors Campaign-funded robotics team finds its way with ingenuity

Foshay Learning Center program takes part in an international competition

For the Foshay Learning Center’s Team 597 Wolverines, it was a suspenseful moment. Which high school team would win the prized Chairman’s Award at the FIRST Robotics International Competition in St. Louis?

Bob Tuttle, FIRST’s co-chair of the board of directors, addressed the audience and talked about the accomplishments of the Wolverines. (FIRST refers to For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.)

“You all did a great job, but there is one team that is particularly special in this program,” he said. “They are the role models and change agents reaching out and transforming whole communities to show through their actions the lessons of team work, gracious professionalism and all the good life lessons FIRST is all about. Read more here.

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A jester brings laughter and a love of reading to children

Peals of laughter echoed off the walls of Lenicia B. Weemes Elementary School’s auditorium near the University Park Campus as dozens of fifth-graders took delight in The Jester Has Lost His Jingle.

The children kicked off a three-week read-a-thon to benefit sick children — an event co-organized by the Joint Educational Project’s (JEP) USC ReadersPlus program.

The other organizer is the Jester & Pharley Phund for Reading Makes a Difference, a program sponsored by the USC Good Neighbors Campaign.

Weemes is among five schools in USC’s Family of Schools participating in the read-a-thon.

“When you’re feeling lonely, or sad, or bad or blue, remember where laughter’s hiding. … It’s hiding inside of YOU!” a woman read aloud, displaying the colorful pages of the book.

“It was a really touching story,” fifth-grader Erica Mozo said during the Oct. 23 event. “I loved the way she read the story and brought all the characters to life.”

Students taking part in a read-a-thon cluster around USC alumna Barbara Saltzman, second from left. (Photo/Susan Bell)
Students taking part in a read-a-thon cluster around USC alumna Barbara Saltzman, second from left. (Photo/Susan Bell)

Students taking part in a read-a-thon cluster around USC alumna Barbara Saltzman, second from left. (Photo/Susan Bell)
Students taking part in a read-a-thon cluster around USC alumna Barbara Saltzman, second from left. (Photo/Susan Bell)

The story behind the story

The reader was Barbara Saltzman, a former Los Angeles Times editor who shared how her son, David Saltzman, wrote and illustrated the story while battling cancer.

In 1990, David died of Hodgkin’s disease at age 22, shortly after graduating from Yale University. The book was his senior project. It tells the tale of a medieval court jester banished by the king when he can no longer make people laugh. Sent out into a hostile, humorless world, the jester hunts for laughter. He finds it in the most unlikely place — a little girl hospitalized with cancer.

After spreading laughter throughout the kingdom, the jester returns to court with the revelation that laughter is hidden inside all of us.

Read more here.